TBLUTC
by mrscribble
Summary: Full Title: Tender, Blossoming Love Under Terrible Circumstances. Archie finds out what Atlanta reads. Karma bites him back. Jay is plain confused. AxA, oneshot!


_Elisabeth sighed, looking up at Russell through her long, dark eyelashes. Her heart beat quickly under her ivory-white skin as he came closer, his tall, strong build and sandy hair handsome enough to make her swoon with delight. He raised an elegant hand to cup her cheek, two of his fingers winding around a silky lock of her thick, lustrous ebony hair. Russell wrapped his other arm around her slim, slender waist, and she relaxed against his muscular chest._

_"Elisabeth," he breathed, his rugged features focused intensely on her, "I have something to tell you..."_

_Elisabeth looked up in his hazel eyes with her clear, piercing blue eyes, and she murmured tenderly in her beautiful, crystal-clear voice, "You know that I will listen to whatever you say to me, Russell."_

_He looked down at her tenderly, his thumb tracing the line of her delicate cheekbone, and said lovingly -_

"What're you reading?"

Atlanta looked up with slight irritation. She was sprawled on her bed with a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips in one hand and the tale of Elisabeth and Russell's tender, blossoming love under terrible circumstances in the other. Realising who it was, Atlanta attempted to hide the book underneath her mattress in desperation. If he found out what she was reading, there was no knowing how long he'd mock her.

Archie looked down at his friend, a characteristic smirk displayed on his face, and grabbed her wrist with one hand, forcefully pulling the romance novel out of her hand with the other. As soon as he grabbed it, Archie gleefully leapt to the other side of the room, twirling about in a manner that was much too girly to be believed. This didn't linger on Atlanta's mind for long, though; no, she had a reputation to uphold, and that reputation mainly involved being one of "the boys" - or, in other words, not addicted to trashy drugstore romance books.

"Give that back!" Atlanta growled, and tried to retrieve her book, pushing the violet-haired boy against the closet door and trying to punch him. The frozen figures of Elisabeth and Russell on the front cover would have cried out, had they a voice, in protest of their terrible mistreatment, the cover almost ripping off the pages as the two tugged at the book.

Ducking under the swing of her arm and plucking the novel out of her hand, Archie scanned the book's title. "Tender, Blossoming Love Under Terrible Circumstances," he read, a wide grin on his face. "What is this, a nominee for worst book title ever?"

She attempted to pinch him again. "Like it's better than the things you read," she retorted.

"You don't know what I read," Archie teased. "For all you know, I might not read at all." He drew back from her pinching fingers, flipping open to the page she had just begun, and read out dramatically in a tone bordering disgust and curiosity, "'I love you, Elisabeth. I want only to be in your arms forever! You are the light of my life and I want only _you_!'"

During his lapse in attention towards her, Atlanta snatched the book back from him, her cheeks burning bright red as she stuffed it back under her mattress. "Oh, shut up," she said bitterly, sitting back down on her bed and polishing off the last few chips left in the bag. He grinned at her, that smug little grin that made her more than a little uncomfortable. She shifted nervously, crumpling up the empty chip bag and throwing it at him.

Archie ducked it easily, letting it sail past him out the door and down the stairs. "I can't believe you read that stuff!" he crowed, coming closer to her and plopping down on the edge of the bed where her legs didn't take up room.

She scowled at him, turning her face away. "Shut up, already!"

He clearly got the message that he was crossing the line between teasing and being annoying, so he attempted to switch gears. "Why do you read that crap, though?" he asked curiously. "I'd have though you'd read, you know... adventure stories, or something."

Atlanta's body tensed up, and he sensed it, jumping off the bed. "Okay, sorry," he muttered, sticking his hands in his pockets and flipping the hood of his sweater over his head. "I guess I'll go then. Have fun reading about their Tender, Blossoming Love."

She watched him walk out the door, hunched over like that, and felt a stab of something like remorse at her heart. He was only teasing, she thought as he disappeared from sight. But still... there was a reason she liked to read them, and he wasn't doing much to make her feel better. _Figures_, she thought bitterly. _He's a total blockhead when it comes to sensitivity_.

Sighing, the redhead's eyes drifted to the gap between her mattress and the wall. Russell, on the other hand...

Atlanta reached under her mattress to retrieve Tender, Blossoming Love Under Terrible Circumstances, flipping open to her unfinished page. She'd say sorry later. Right now, there was the issue of whether Russell would keep his promise with Elisabeth...

_"Oh, Russell! I've fallen in love with you, too. Your eyes, your smile... you understand who I _am_...!"_

_Istillhaven'tfixedmydividerproblem. _

_Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?  
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.  
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  
And summer's lease hath all too short a date._

"Archie?"

Archie's head shot up, looking around the room hastily before zoning in on Atlanta, who stood uncomfortably in the doorway of his extremely messy room. He leapt up from his position at his desk, hiding the slim, well-thumbed book behind his back. "A-Atlanta!" he stammered, cursing himself. Everyone knew that when he stammered, he was nervous. And, if she thought that he was nervous...

"I came to say sor- hey, what's that?"

He mentally hit himself. "Er, this? I mean, what? There's nothing here, heh! Nothing to w-worry about. Nothing. Really," he managed to stammer out, backing himself against his wall as she entered the room.

Atlanta's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're hiding something!" she cried gleefully, walking up to him. His heart pounded as she attempted to grab the leather-bound book. _Karma!_ a voice in the back of his mind crowed happily, and he winced.

The redheaded girl faked an attempt at the book on his left, and he stupidly moved it to the right, where she quickly took it away with her other hand. In a few leaps, she was happily nestled on his messily-made bed, opening the book. Awkwardly, he reached around to scratch the back of his neck. _I am so screwed_, he thought pitifully to himself.

"This is poetry," Atlanta stated, looking up at Archie incredulously and pointing to the verses. "You read _poetry_?"

"_Write_ and read," he corrected, then brought his hand up to smack himself. "Oh, crap," he muttered under his breath, burying his face in his hand.

Atlanta laughed at his expression, and looked down at the page she had opened up to. "'My love is as a fever, longing still, for that which longer nurseth the disease' - you read _romantic_ poetry?" she asked with a disbelieving look on her face.

Archie shifted under her questioning gaze, his pale skin flushing a bright red. "You better not tell anyone," he muttered pathetically, walking over and taking the book back. He stuffed it into his desk drawer, leaving it with several old pencil stubs and a torn motorcycle magazine.

Atlanta watched him as he sat down on the desk chair, swivelling around to face her. She shook her head, still giggling inside. _Archie and poetry? Geez, that's absolutely crazy. Though he does have that cute loner-freak sort of thing going on_... she let out a chuckle at this thought.

The blush that had advanced upon his cheeks died down, and Archie shrugged defensively, mistaking her laugh for derision. "Not like you're any better with your books."

Temper flaring, Atlanta shot back, "but you're _male_."

"You're as_ good_ as male," Archie spat back without thinking.

Her face fell for a second, then hardened, chin jutting out defiantly. She pressed her lips together tightly, and Archie panicked. "I didn't mean it," he hastily added.

The boy was telling the truth, of course - it wasn't as if he thought she was a guy or anything, though her taste in afterschool activities were decidedly not girly. After all, there had been quite a few times, he distinctly remembered with a lump forming in his throat, where he had certainly noticed she was... a girl. And had... female parts. That, er... _sometimes bounced_.

His face burned again, trying to block out the dirty thoughts invading his mind, as she looked back at him oddly. Clearing her throat, Atlanta muttered in reply, "I know." Still, there was a hint of hurt evident in her voice, and she fell silent, looking down at his blue bedspread between her fingers.

"Um, so..." Archie said awkwardly, fiddling with the zipper of his sweater. He paused, looking down at his hands for a moment, before saying quietly, "I'm sorry about before."

Atlanta shrugged nonchalantly. "It's my fault," she admitted, "I shouldn't've blown up at you like that."

"Nah," he answered, flopping down next to her on the bed. "I asked you about too much."

With her feet, the redhead pushed the desk chair in front of them across the room, sending it flying to accurately clatter into its usual position at the desk. "It was nothing," she insisted, looking back at him.

He caught her eye, and they held eye contact for a tense moment, before Archie dropped his gaze to his lap. They sat awkwardly like that for a second, Atlanta staring out the door with great interest and Archie intensely examining his knees.

"I've never been kissed," the violet-haired poet suddenly said. This would have been a horribly uncomfortable situation, especially given the fact that Archie was more the type to brood silently rather than admit his shortcomings, were it not that at the same time, Atlanta uttered the same thing.

They both started, Atlanta's face becoming considerably rosier, and Archie frowned. "What about the whole DJ Panic fiasco?" he asked doubtfully, arms crossing over his chest. "I'm pretty sure I saw you two making out more than once."

Atlanta's face grew even hotter, her expression guilty. "I, er, don't really count that," she said sheepishly, raking a hand through her short hair, "he was a mistake."

At his skeptical face, Atlanta added quickly, "Just forget about him, okay? He was my first kiss, but I don't count it, so technically I haven't kissed anyone." She paused, then rubbed at her forehead. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"'Cause I'm so understanding, that's why," Archie replied, a bit of a grin sliding over his features. He leaned over closer to her and teased, "any more life secrets you'd like to share?"

The redhead rolled her eyes, punching him lightly on the arm. "Shut up," she answered playfully, "I don't see you any better off."

He pulled back, rubbing his arm in mock pain. "Jeez," Archie grumbled, shooting her a glare which proved not to be serious as he leaned back against the wall with a smile. "Don't even remind me."

Atlanta sighed deeply, leaning against the wall next to him. "Gosh," she murmured, letting her eyelids slip closed her eyes.

Archie gave a grunt in reply, closing his eyes in imitation. "We lead sad double lives," he muttered, "go around saving the world from an evil time-warping god and I can't even get a girl."

With this, he cracked one eye open to look at the girl next to him, letting out a soft sigh. A frown furrowed his forehead for a moment as he looked wistfully at her features, then he closed his eye again. _I can't get _the_ girl_, he corrected himself in his thoughts. _The one I've been after for a year now._

"Gods," Atlanta suddenly said, opening her eyes and sitting up straight, "sometimes I wish all this didn't even happen."

"What, Cronus and the gods and all that?" Archie asked curiously, opening his eyes and sitting up straight next to her, pushing his knees down to sit cross-legged.

Atlanta nodded. "It'd be so much easier," she muttered, fiddling with the wristband on her right wrist. "I might have a more normal life. Stay up late at a party without having Jay make sure you get some sleep, manage to get a boyfriend who isn't a hypnotized half-goat."

"But if it hadn't happened, we never would've met each other," Archie replied, fully knowing that his sentences were now all-too-sappy. "Your hunting skills wouldn't've worked out for much. I didn't want to join at first, you know, but I wouldn't ever want to go back."

Ruffling the top of Archie's dyed mane playfully, Atlanta agreed softly, "I would've missed out on that."

He reached up to protect his hair, grabbing her wrist and wrestling her down on the bed. "_Not_ the hair," he said, glaring at her with an if-looks-could-kill expression on his face. She wrinkled her nose, aptly pushing him back with equal force. He withdrew reluctantly, and went back to leaning nonchalantly against the wall. "Let's do something," Archie suggested, fiddling with the bedspread.

"Wanna go boarding?" Atlanta asked, idly lying down on the bed across his legs and tucking her hands neatly behind her head.

"Nah," he answered, in a purposely bored tone to hide his nervousness at her new position. "We could go watch 'Frankenstein's Sixth Return'."

"Actually..." Atlanta started slowly, and she looked up at him with that impishly devious expression that came across her face far too much and he could swear he felt his heart pause in its relentless lub-thub, "...I was thinking more about starting another book," Atlanta finished, grinning guiltily.

At this, his heart resumed pace again, though at a slightly more accelerated rate. "Oh," he said half-heartedly. Archie had been hoping, perhaps, that she had something in mind that would involve both of them, by themselves. Preferably an activity that involved a dark room. His face burned red at the thoughts that ensued, and he turned his face away in hope Atlanta wouldn't notice.

Mistaking his apparent ignorance of her for discontentment, she sighed. "Never mind, then," the redhead said, and stared up at the ceiling, "we could watch Frankenstein if you really want."

Archie felt the hotness of his cheeks fade slightly, and he turned back to look at her. "Nah, it's okay," he said lamely, heart still thudding loudly, "I heard it's got a dumb ending anyway."

"Okay..." Atlanta muttered, drawing out the second syllable, and sighed again. _Somehow, I thought spending any time in Archie's room would be more... productive_, managed to worm itself into her mind, and she coughed to disguise the ideas she was sure would manage to leak out in plain sight for him to see. "I guess... we'll stay here."

"Um," Archie intelligently stated in reply. His mind was running at a speed much more quickly than usual for some odd reason, and he was having trouble keeping up with his thoughts. As far as he could tell, most of them were centered on the girl lying across his knees. Some of them were rather odd, especially the ones which declared how pink her lips looked even if they were rather cracked, or the ones which began to quietly recite, _my mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun_...

_Too much Shakespeare_, he remembered thinking with great clarity, before he leaned in over her.

Atlanta had just opened her mouth for another shot at holding a conversation with her best-male-friend-turned-frequent-subject-of-thought when he'd moved in closer, leaning down to her with a strange mix of determination and seriousness set over his face. She'd just about burst out laughing and called him a dork for his unusual expression when she realised that he wasn't joking in any form.

And he kissed her.

It was... strange, she'd recounted later, strange but nice. Nothing fireworks-and-orchestra-music, but what kisses exploded like that anyway, other than in the cheesy romance movies Theresa liked to rent? Atlanta felt something tighten in her chest when his mouth brushed against hers and she instinctively pressed back.

Of course, at that moment where everything was borderline cheesy-romantic and not at all New Olympia, Archie had to lose balance spectacularly because of the peculiar position he was in and grab her arm as he tumbled off his bed, which resulted in an entanglement of limbs and Atlanta's head hitting his bedside cabinet, hard.

"Ow!" she squeaked loudly, rubbing her head. She pulled herself away from under him, looking at him with a mix of bewilderment and amusement. "I thought you had better balance than that!"

"You were the one lying over my knees!" he retorted, looking slightly offended as he sat up.

"Oh, you started it!" she replied in a louder voice, though the grins were visible on both their faces.

"Um. Are you guys okay in here?" came a different voice from the doorway, sounding very concerned, and somewhat scandalised.

Both of them looked up at Jay standing in the doorway with a confused look on his face.

"We're trying to watch a movie down there," Neil's nasal whine came from behind him, and he came into view over Jay's shoulder. "I mean, I don't really care what you're doing because we all saw it coming, but for god's sake, keep it _down_!" he continued, shaking his head before turning away and stepping away back down the stairs.

"We're fine," Atlanta said hastily, in reassurance.

Jay still stood there, looking more than a bit uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot. "Uh, I guess I'll go back down then..." he trailed off, looking uncertain, before slowly taking three steps back and then rushing down the stairs.

Archie stared at his exit in disbelief as Atlanta silently cracked up, rolling about the floor in tearful laughter. "What was _that _all about?" he whispered loudly to her. She simply continued laughing, then managed to stagger upright as her bouts of laughter subsided somewhat.

"I can't believe it," she snorted, still giggling, "I think they thought we were - you know - and - _oh my god_!" This statement made her start giggling again.

He shook his head silently, taking his pillow from his bed. "You women are all crazy," he objected, and threw the pillow at her, merely evoking another few bouts of laughter as she staggered to the doorway.

Leaning against the doorframe, she managed to gasp, "I'm gonna go read that book again," before doubling up and vanishing past the doorframe. Archie shook his head, getting up to retrieve his pillow.

As he placed it carefully back on his bed, Atlanta popped back into his doorway. "Um, by the way," she said, flashing one of those impish grins that made his heart stop for a fraction of a second, "maybe we should do this more often."

As soon as he regained his use of speech, Archie asked dumbly, "what, make out?"

"Well, if you put it that way," she replied, gorgeous grin still wide on her face.

With that, she vanished past the frame of his door again, and he stared after her with mixed apprehension and amusement. Walking over to his desk, Archie took out his leather-bound book of poetry again, goofy grin plastered on his face. Indeed, maybe the girl he had just "caught" (or, you could say, had caught him) was unusual - a hunter, a feminist, a competitive heroine who was addicted to trashy romance novels - but he wouldn't have it any other way.

_My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;  
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:  
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;  
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.  
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,  
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;  
And in some perfumes is there more delight  
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.  
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know   
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.  
I grant I never saw a goddess go:  
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.  
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare  
As any she belied with false compare._

_Istillhaven'tfixedmydividerproblem._

**A/N**: So, this is my second COTT fanfiction to date.

Obviously, the poetry quoted is all Shakespeare. The excerpt from Tender, Blossoming Love Under Terrible Circumstances was by me (which shows how bad I am at writing that sort of thing). The idea for the fic was partly Sonnet 130 (the last poem) and partly me wondering _if Archie read poetry, would he read romantic poetry? And if he read romantic poetry, what about Atlanta?_

The end is kind of iffy to me, but I still like it. As always: read, review, concrit if you have it!_  
_


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